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Answer |
The "Fix" button should probably be changed to read "Fix If
Possible", but unfortunately there simply is not enough room in the
dialog for such. The "Fix" choice simply instructs Investor/RT to run
the "Database Maintenance" utility. The maintenance utility can often
fix minor database errors, thereby avoiding the need to restore the
database back to an earlier backup. That's why we recommend this at a
first course of action should errors be detected
After the Fix is attempted, the software should tell you whether the fix
(dbmaintenance) was successful or not.
If, for some reason, you cannot tell whether the fix was successful, you
can verify the integrity of your database AT ANY TIME by issuing the
Verify Database command in the Control Menu, under Database Utilities.
If errors are reported you can issue the Restore Database command to
restore back to an earlier backup. 99% of the time this is the immediate
fix and database integrity is restored.
Consider this scenario: If your last backup was made yesterday, for
example, and after that backup you proceeded to create 17 new chart
definition, 23 new quote pages and wrote 5 new scans and create 7 new
custom indicators and even a new trading system, you would be very
reluctant to restore to that earlier backup, since you will lose all
that work when you do. This is why, for new clients especially, we
recommend you perform a backup after any significant amount of
definitional work. It only takes a few seconds and once backed up your
work is protected should database error surface later. So if you find
yourself in that situation with errors detected after the fix attempt,
you can explore other alternatives in order to preserve the setup work
done since the last backup.
One, technique is to simply export the items you created recently, do
the restore, then import those definitions again. This works fine for
charts, scans, signals, custom indicators, trading systems, quotepages.
Another idea is to quit IRT, run database maintenance so you can see for
yourself (in the Notepad report) where the errors are. In your present
case there are only a few errors in the database. Here what they look
like in the dbmaint.txt report:
Problems at record 172:
* set SL_SYM_T_TICK(27) error:
invalid last-pointer:
pointer-dba=[1:3952]
* set SL_SYM_T_TICK(27) error:
invalid first-pointer:
pointer-dba=[1:3951]
Now I know this looks like gibberish to you, and if you don't know what
the messages mean, email the dbmaint.txt to
support@linnsoft.com and you
will get an explanation and guidance on how to proceed. The
SL_SYM_T_TICK is the name of the "linkage" in the database that links
intra-day (tick) data to the ticker symbol to which it belongs. All of
the errors in this present case involve SL_SYM_T_TICK, thus the error
can be eliminated without restoring the backup by "Initializing" the
intra-day database. Use the Initialize Intraday Database command in the
Control menu. This will give you database integrity, at the expense of
losing all of your intra-day data, however, all definition work is
preserved, and intra-day data is easily downloaded again from the server
as needed. This is the recommended action in this case. If your
intra-day is extensive, by the way, and re-downloading it would be
inconvenient, you can do an Export of say one minute bars for the .All
Symbols quotepage. This will produce a large text file that you can
re-import after initializing the intra-day database to eliminate the db
errors.
Be sure to run the database verify utility after initializing intra-day
database just to be sure all is well again. In fact once you get your
database verifying okay again, make a backup if your former backup is
not up to date.
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